Is your organisation being held back by a productivity plateau?

Our research shows that 85% of business leaders work in organisations that currently use or intend to implement intelligent automation. More than two-thirds will do so within three years. These findings validate that embracing intelligent automation will be key to organisations breaking through the productivity plateau and remaining competitive in the AI-first world.

Commissioned by Avanade, the new global study of 800 C-level and IT executives across eight countries reveals how rapidly organisations are adopting intelligent automation, the benefits they expect to achieve, and what leaders need to do to harness the potential of intelligent automation to drive unprecedented personal and professional capabilities.

“Leaders recognise the potential for intelligent automation to accelerate productivity by driving more value from data, and freeing employees from mundane, repetitive tasks to focus on activities that require human intervention and/or add value, like innovation.”

Adam WarbyAvanade CEO

Key findings: Moving beyond the humans vs machines fear factor

More than 85% of survey respondents believe it is an imperative to deploy intelligent automation to be a leader in their field. Top benefits cited by business leaders globally include increased productivity (50%), faster time-to-market (45%), making more workers available for complex tasks and innovation (43%) and reducing costs (43%). However, while a majority of business leaders globally are optimistic about the potential of intelligent automation to augment the workforce, rather than replace jobs, there is still work to do to convince employees. An overwhelming 79% of business leaders believe that internal resistance to change is limiting the implementation of intelligent automation.

More than two-thirds of organisations globally will be using intelligent automation by 2020.

In addition, Avanade’s research uncovered the need for a significant shift in leadership capabilities for the AI-first world. According to the research, over half of global business leaders believe that an understanding of new and emerging technologies, such as AI, will be more important for leadership than traditional specialisations like sales and marketing by 2022.